Carol's random babble

I had some "oh no" moments and some "ah" moments today. The "oh no" was when I found out that Judith Duffy, a kindergarden teacher in Fort Dodge, died. My mom is a Foster Grandparent and she worked in Mrs. Duffy's class for, I think, five years. When I found out, I had to call Mom and tell her, so she wouldn't read it in the paper tomorrow without warning. The "ah" moment was on the way home from work at 1 a.m. I can drive two ways home - on Highway 169, which is four lanes most of the way, then D-33, a county road, or I could go on county road P-59 and then a road that goes twisty through woods (Riverside Trail or something like that). Anyway, I keep a sharp eye out for deer, and as I was going through the woods, I saw a small animal. Thinking it was a cat, I slowed down and then stopped. It was a raccoon, which was joined by another.. They had to be juvenile, because they were only about the size of a cat. I have seen (as road kill) ...

Ah, I haven't been blogging lately, but I've been spending a lot of time on the Woman's Day forums. Just look for posts by CaySedai. I've also been wasting a lot of time at Neopets . I have started following advice from FlyLady , though. I'm working on my Control Journal, and we've done a couple of Crisis Cleaning times, although the girls aren't too enthusiastic. The place is fairly messy, but better than before. The problem is that there's problems with the floor in the kitchen/dining room area. The floor is getting soft in the kitchen. The kitchen is a walk-through. Part of the dining room floor is buckling, but it's still hard. Kent made a misstep and put his foot through the linoleum in the kitchen. The landlord has seen this and sent a plumber to fix the line behind the washing machine, where he thought a leak was causing the problem. Now he's planning to bring his insurance guy to look at it. Two problems: the plumber came last ...

I think blogger is behaving now, except I told it to "republish entire site" because it wouldn't republish the last two posts... so it's still going, LOL. I took the fourth off, had to see the fireworks. Last year, I got off work early, but they had started and I got home just as they were over. What a disappointment. This year, I sat in my front yard and watched the fireworks that were set off a block away - some went off directly over our heads. It was awesome. Cayla was scared at first, so I had her sit in the car with me, then she calmed down and we sat in a chair in the yard. It was so beautiful. Amanda's 10th birthday is Sunday, I think we're getting her a bike. She's been using an old one that's not working now, and Cayla got a new one in May for good grades. That was partly out of frustration on our part, because Amanda needs motivation and Cayla just does her homework. We wanted to show Amanda that rewards are possible if you apply yo...